Regular season record between Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers does not count in playoffs
The Texas Rangers are preparing to face the Detroit Tigers for the first time in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday, October 8 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
The two Goliaths are set to collide and there will be a lot of talk over which team holds the advantage over the other. Detroit’s manager Jim Leyland spoke to the reporters to talk about his opinion.
The skipper immediately threw out the regular league season record over the Rangers. The two teams played three series; one in Arlington and the other two in Detroit. The Tigers were 6-3 in the season, picking up two wins a piece, from each season.
The important point to note is that five games were decided by one or two runs while four of the nine encounters were decided in the seventh inning or later. Rangers had bullpen trouble in the initial months of the season. They had Mike Adams and Koji Uehara
for the August fixtures but the Rangers were without Adrian Beltre (hamstring injury).
Going back to April, the Rangers lost Josh Hamilton who suffered a fractured bone in his right arm during the first series against the Tigers in Detroit.
"You can forget the season series, the fact that we won that," said Leyland. "We may have missed a couple of star players. Certainly, that had something to do with it. You can throw that out of the window. This is a tremendous team, a very versatile team.
I like that team."
Both teams will be looking to put in a good performance and dominate the series from the start. The Rangers will be playing at home in Game 1 and will intend to make full use of this advantage. Detroit is surging with confidence, as they just eliminated
the mighty Yankees from the playoffs.
The opposing skipper went on to say that the regular season records are nothing to go by in the playoffs. The Tigers know they are up against the best and hopefully they can put up a good fight and entertain the spectators. Leyland concluded by saying that
it is the same with both of the teams.
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